Burning Kingdoms (3 page)

As I reach for the doorknob, he grabs my wrist. “I also think we should take an opportunity to get familiar with this kingdom,” he says. “In case we have to run.”

“Run.” I try not to laugh, but it’s so absurd. “Basil, where would we go?”

He seems worried, though. “Don’t you think it’s strange that they’ve built a theme park just so they can gaze at the ‘magical floating city’ and yet when the lot of us falls down from it, the king wants to keep us a secret?”

“It is strange,” I say. “But everything about this world is strange so far.”

“All I mean is, what’s to stop him from killing us all if he pleases? No one would be the wiser.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I say, and I feel a chill. “Oh, Basil, do you think that could happen?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “But we should keep that in mind.”

I nod. “We’ll familiarize ourselves with the city. Pen could even draw up a map, I should think.” I force myself to smile. “It will work out, Basil.”

He gives me the same sort of distracted smile. “Good night,” he says.

After I’ve washed up and changed into one of the many nightgowns hanging in the closet, I look for Alice and Lex. They’ll surely be together. When I get to the door at the end of the hallway and I knock, no one answers. There’s light coming from under the door, though. “Hello?” I say, and turn the knob. “Alice?”

“Quiet,” Judas says. “Close the door behind you.”

He’s knelt on the floor beside Amy, whose skin is red. Her hair is damp, and I recognize that dead stare in her eyes.

“I came in to check on her before everyone went to dinner, and I found her in the middle of a fit,” he says. “A bad one.”

“She’s been lying on the floor like that since dinner?” I touch her forehead, and she flinches and gasps, but there’s no real awareness about her.

“I’m afraid to move her,” he says. “Daphne would always say never to move her while her eyes are still open, to wait until she looks like she’s sleeping.”

Daphne aspired to be a medic before her murder, and I’m sure she knew how to care for her sister’s fits, but it doesn’t seem right to leave a sick child on the floor like this.

“I’ll get Lex,” I say.

“No.” He grabs my arm and pulls me back down. “She needs to be kept calm. She doesn’t like when anyone sees her like this; it makes her feel weak.”

“She’s ill, Judas. Look at her. She needs a doctor, and Lex is the closest we’ve got.”

He looks at Amy. Her lips twitch like she’s talking to one of her ghosts.

“She needs a doctor,” I repeat.

“You don’t understand,” he says. “You just don’t. If you want to help, bring a cold cloth from the water room and let’s try to break her fever.”

I do as he says and drench the green towel from the water room.

“Her parents hoped she’d grow out of this,” he says, dabbing at her cheeks and behind her neck. “It’s only gotten worse as she’s gotten older. And the pills and meetings with the specialist have caused more harm than good.” He looks at me. “Want to hear something crazy?”

“What?” I say.

“She’s got me believing in apparitions with all of this. She swears they talk to her.”

“I don’t think that’s crazy,” I say. “Our history book doesn’t account for the unexplained, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Her eyes have closed now. She’s surrendered to whatever dreams haunt that troubled mind of hers. I hope for all of this snow to be gone soon. I hope for a morning bright with sun. If she can see that the sunlight is the same whether we’re on Internment or the ground, it will surely help. It has to.

Pen catches up with me as I’m leaving the water room. “There you are,” she says. “You left me alone with Princess Fancy. It’s a wonder I didn’t kill her.” She leans closer to me. “What is it?” she says. “You look troubled.”

I tug her into the water room and close the door behind us. I tell her about Basil’s theory that Jack Piper and the king could be hiding us away in case he means to kill us.

Pen hardly seems surprised. “Yes, I’ve been thinking that as well,” she says, scrubbing her face at the sink with a cloth. “For all we know, these people have a history of killing outsiders. Or one another. Or anyone. It’s a strange thing to be in a world and not know a thing about its past.”

“So what should we do?” I ask.

“As you said, familiarize ourselves with this kingdom as best we can,” Pen says.

“Do you think you could draw a map?” I say.

“If they have a library, it likely already has a map of the kingdom. I could copy it and add my own notes,” she says.

“Jack Piper’s eldest daughter seems close to our age,” I say. “Maybe we can befriend her and gain some insight into the family.”

Pen shrugs. “We could. I doubt that she’ll be privy to her father’s politics—he seems annoyed with his children at best—but she could probably teach us a thing or two.”

She sits beside me on the edge of the tub. “I think we’d be wise to learn from her, but not to trust her,” she says. “We shouldn’t trust anyone in this world.”

3

There is sunlight
come morning, but it’s not the same.

Pen stands at the curtains, parting them with her hand. Beyond the window there is nothing but white.

Celeste, still sleeping, turns away, muttering in protest at the light.

Pen nods from me to the window. “Come and see,” she whispers. “It’s like we’re inside an unfinished sketch.”

Even the water on the horizon is gray and white. It sparkles as it fades into the distance. There is no train framing this city. There is no limit. It could well go on forever, to a horizon it would take ten lifetimes to run to.

There’s a draft coming through the window frame, and my skin swells with little bumps.

“I can hardly stand to look at it,” Pen says excitedly.

“It’s beautiful,” I say. Pen looks at me, and I grin. She knows what I’m thinking. “You know we can’t,” I say. “We’ll freeze to death.”

She runs to the closet, a skip in her step, and she throws a heavy coat at me and takes one for herself. “What good is all that brave nonsense we’ve been feeding each other if we don’t act at least a little crazy?”

“What are you blathering about?” Celeste mumbles from under her blanket.

“Nothing,” Pen says. “I got lost trying to find the water room. Woman troubles.”

“Thank you for that charming announcement,” Celeste says.

We stand still until we’re sure she’s asleep, and then Pen opens the door, wincing as it creaks.

It’s still early and the hotel is silent. The soft floor helps to conceal our footfalls, but we move slowly anyway. “Would you look at these colorings?” Pen says. “The frames are taller than we are.”

I tug at the lapels of my coat, struggling to adjust to the weight on my shoulders. “Do you think they’re portraits of real people?” I say.

“Look at the colors,” Pen says. Her fingertips hover over the portrait of a woman whose shoulders are cloaked in fur, but Pen doesn’t dare to touch. “They’re so rich. If I had colors like this, I’d want a canvas this size to work with too.”

The next step creaks under my foot, startling us both, and we hurry the rest of the way to the door.

Overnight the snow has accumulated to knee height, but the cold is surprisingly bearable. Pen spreads her arms and falls forward into the white powder. When she emerges, her face is red and there are clumps of snow turning to water on her skin.

“Not as soft as you might’ve hoped,” she says, and pulls on my arm. I go toppling down beside her with a shriek.

“There’s so much of it,” I say. “When it melts, the whole world must be soggy underneath.”

“Our little clouds have been holding out on us,” Pen says. “Who knew?”

We make a game of chasing each other, bogged down by the weight around our ankles. We splash each other like it’s the water of an enchanted, glittering lake.

Pen kneels and tries to draw a floating city with her finger, but snow proves to be an unsatisfactory canvas.

I look at the sky, and all I see is more whiteness. I’ve never known the sky to be any color but blue.

And then, as though I willed it, I see a bit of blue in the sky. Moving.

“Pen!” I gasp.

“What? What is it?” It takes her a moment to see what I’m pointing to, and then she’s silent. We both stare at the thing, and turn our heads to follow as it flutters up and out of sight.

“Was that—”

“A bird.” My heart is in my throat.

“It was the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen,” Pen says.

“Do you think it will ever land?”

“Not if it has any sense.”

The moment is broken by a noise in the distance. Along the side of the building, a girl is attempting to scale a tree. We walk toward her until I can better see her wavy hair and the sharp seams in her brown gloves.

“Gertrude?” I say.

She drops from the foothold, a hand to her chest. “Goodness, you scared me half to death,” she says. She gives us a sheepish smile. “You can just call me Birdie. Everyone does.”

“Were you going to break into our bedroom?” Pen says.

Gertrude looks up. “Is that where you’re sleeping? Sorry, girls, that room has the strongest tree outside. You wouldn’t mind my traipsing through every now and again, would you? I’m kind of a night owl.”

“Well, we wouldn’t,” Pen says, “but who knows what Her Royal Stinky Highness will do from one day to the next? I wouldn’t let her catch you.”

Gertrude looks contemplatively at the window again. Her breath comes out in little clouds. She’s wearing a coat that seems too thin for this cold, though she has enough beads around her neck to constitute a scarf.

“Your princess is a wet blanket, huh?”

“That’s one way to put it,” I say.

“Once she senses a weak spot, she goes for the jugular,” Pen says. “Here’s a silly idea: Why don’t you use the door?”

“Father locks it,” she says.

“It isn’t locked now,” I say. “We’ve just opened it.”

“If you give us a heads up, we’ll make sure it’s unlocked when you want to sneak out,” Pen says. “That way you won’t have to sneak through the house or climb through our window and scare everyone senseless.”

“You’d do that?” Gertrude says.

“Back home, I used to sneak out all the time,” Pen says. “There was this little cavern in the woods. Remember, Morgan?”

Remember? How could I not? It was only last week and a lifetime ago. All I can do is nod. I suddenly feel that I’ll cry if I utter a word.

Gertrude smiles. It is a sincere, girlish smile, one that’s unaffected by her heavy eyeliner and blood-red lips. “Well, thanks,” she says. “I should get washed up before Father wakes us for breakfast. I must look like a ragamuffin.”

She’s a shy girl in a rebel’s garb. The ground is her home, but it’s still a big place, and I think she must be like Pen and me—trying to figure out this strange world as it reveals itself, bit by bit.

I think Pen was right, and that Gertrude Piper—Birdie—will have little insight into her father’s political dealings, but I would still like to get to know her.

After she’s gone inside, Pen looks at me. “What’s a night owl?” she says.

I shrug.

By the time we’re summoned for breakfast, Birdie is as fresh-faced and bright-eyed as her brothers and sisters. Not a drop of cosmetics on her face. After a night of no sleep, I’m not sure how she manages it, but no one suspects a thing, though I see Nimble elbow her as she takes her place beside him.

The plates are laid before us. Something yellow and fluffy, accompanied by little gray-brown cakes. “Eggs!” Annette says happily.

Pen can’t hide her skepticism. “The eggs of what?” she asks. We’ve never heard of eating something in egg form.

“Chickens,” Annette says.

“Chickens are birds,” Nimble says, watching to see our reaction.

I tuck my hands under the table. I was already having difficulty forcing an appetite, but now there’s no hope for this meal passing between my lips.

“We don’t eat a lot of plants,” he adds.

“Can it, Nim,” Birdie says under her breath. She clears her throat. “Where’s Father?”

“Otherwise engaged,” Nimble says. “He’s with a few of the king’s finest, trying to talk that crazy old man out of that ramshackle plane.”